Sarah G.

Technology / Science

2/12/02

It Isn’t Easy Being Green,

Or Is It?

Hello. I’m a 13-year-old girl named Zara Starr, and I live in the galaxy Solaron. Solaron is 20 light years away from Earth. It was colonized in the year 2186, and it is now 2215. The planet I live on is covered with a clear plastic bubble, to protect the colony from the ever-shining sun.

If I had to describe myself I would say that I’m smart, funny, nice, a twin, and I’m green. Yes, I’m green. You see, a couple years ago scientists on my planet injected my family and me with a virus containing chlorophyll. The virus only attacked our skin cells, and when it attached them our skin turned green. The cool thing is that we photosynthesize.

Our house has a clear plastic roof, so we can store the sun’s energy while we do our daily routine. Because we do this, when we wake up we aren’t hungry.

A couple of days ago red students came to our school. I didn’t find them that unusual, because I have a different colored skin too. Plus, they’re just ordinary kids like me, they just have a different skin color. I know that they are just normal people, because my best friend is red. Her name is Lana. I knew her before she was injected with the red chlorophyll virus, and she is the same now as she was before. I think the regular kids, and even some of the green kids, are afraid of the red kids. Some of the teachers act weird around the red kids, just because they aren’t used to them. I guess it would be different to look out on a class, and see a rainbow of different colored kids.

People tease the red kids, just like they did to the green kids, when we first got injected. People called us “plant-people” for a while, but they got over it. They call the red kids “tomatoes”, and they’ll get over that too.

Eventually everyone will realize what I have come to believe. No matter what color you are, black, white, green, red, or even purple polka dots; we all are humans.